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To Straight And Back

I decided to come out in the Portland gay community too, donating to some non-profits, trying to become a part of this world, to let them know I was supportive. But my past soon came to haunt me. People said, “Oh, this is the guy who once told us we needed to change.”

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One incident in particular hit me very hard. In 2013 I was confronted by a man in a coffee shop who was angry and had tears in his eyes. ‘The kind of message you preached kept me in depression for most of my life,” he told me. “My parents wanted me to change, I tried for years and I couldn’t do it. It devastated my life until I finally accepted I was gay.“ What he said moved me to tears, and I apologized to him. Since then he’s become a dear friend, but that’s not always been the case: I’ve now had similarly painful encounters with hundreds of people, mostly online. Up until then I hadn’t really seen or understood a lot of the pain I had been causing in my two decades as an ex-gay activist. That encounter was a beginning.

As a result, I came to feel a tremendous responsibility to set the record straight publicly. A year ago, I issued a statement of apology. A lot of people I had known from the Exodus program were my main support group at this time—including the former best man at my wedding, who had come out himself. We had a Facebook page called “Ex-Ex-Gay,” with more than 400 members. Many of them were gay men who were now divorced, often after breaking some woman’s heart. Together these friends helped me draft my statement, which was then sent out by the Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., to gay magazines and websites across the country. I said, in part: “Today, I do not consider myself ‘ex-gay’ and I no longer support or promote the movement. Please allow me to be clear: I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people. I know that countless people were harmed by things I said and did in the past,Parents, families, and their loved ones were negatively impacted by the notion of reparative therapy and the message of change. I am truly, truly sorry for the pain I have caused.”

Not long ago I went to a conference of Christians who are gay and lesbian. There were more than 700 people there—many of them people harmed by organizations or ministries that felt they needed to change their sexual orientation. Afterward people began emailing and Facebooking me, telling me stories that were very much like those of my friend in the Portland coffee shop, “I wanted to be like you and your wife; you were held up as poster children. And I hated myself because I couldn’t be you.” That really rocked me. I hadn’t realized all this while I was preaching the ex-gay gospel. I’d been shielded from it.

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Today, for the first time since I was a young man, I’m not living a double life—a life that is a lie, day in and day out. I have no more secrets than the next person. Recently, my oldest son, who is 17, said this to me: “You’ve become a better dad to us, and a better person. You’re much more at peace. You don’t lose your temper. You’re calm. I accept you for who you are, Dad, and I love you.” I told him: “When you’re not fighting who you are, you’re a much better person.” It’s true. Sometimes, while I was living my double life, I was very short with them. When the gay pride parade would come around, and it was always on Father’s Day, I’d be with my sons and wife, but I would be longing to be at that parade. This past Father’s Day, I spent a glorious day with my sons but the tinge of loneliness and the longing to be watching that parade was gone… vanished. I had stopped fighting what just did not change. No doubt, my decision to move in this direction has left scars. I have hurt the people I love. But I have no regrets about embracing the path of honesty and authenticity; I believe it’s made me a kinder example of the person I couldn’t be before.

Today I have no desire to get involved again in a national debate. I am happy running a business, and being true to myself and my children. My extended family accepts me as I am. I am supported by them.

Still, I hope very much that Rick Perry and those many others who still want to change us will read this. And, perhaps, even understand a little bit what it really means to be gay.

John Paulk is the owner of Mezzaluna, a catering business in Portland, Oregon.